Wealthy people enjoy their mansions, yachts, fancy cars, private jets and private clubs. No law against being super comfortable, living the good life with servants and avoiding TSA lines and self-serve kiosks.
But considering that the ultra-wealthy already own so much, enjoy so many perks in life and never have to ask “how much” when grocery shopping, you would think they could leave alone federal services for everyone else who is not in the same high-income world.
I’m not asking them to take a vow of poverty like a nun or even share their wealth with the rest of the country, but it’d be nice if they could just consider that people who don’t live the easy life deserve to at least live an OK life.
Yet that doesn’t seem to be the case these tumultuous days in Washington, D.C., where the rich are streaming in and taking over the government much like General William Tecumseh Sherman marched to the sea in 1864, destroying Atlanta in a scorched-earth campaign during the Civil War.
Only this time the rich are not torching homes, they are burning down jobs and services, disrupting lives and poking their noses into people’s private finances and beliefs. They want to determine which federal employees put loyalty to the president ahead of the law. “Loyalty Over the Law” gives a sad, new meaning to the emoji LOL.
Closing federal offices that help and protect people, dismantling or crippling the Department of Education, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and many other agencies is the new pastime for wealthy people appointed to positions of power and prestige in Washington. They are on a mission to disrupt the world, while their world remains quite comfortable.
And even if they are not the battalion leaders of the scorched-earth march, they are supplying the ammunition and opening the gates as Elon Musk calls out orders.
Musk, reportedly the richest person in America, is worth about $400 billion, according to Forbes magazine and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. When you’re worth that much, people will follow you most anywhere.
For now, some of the nation’s richest people are following Musk and President Donald Trump to Washington to take jobs as cabinet secretaries and other high-power positions. They are doing so in comfort. All that marching gets tiring.
Trump’s pick to serve as Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent paid $12.5 million for a mansion in Washington, D.C., according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The five-bedroom house measures about 8,000 square feet over four levels, according to the property listing. It has a banquet-sized dining room, drawing room and library, and comes with an 800-square-foot saltwater pool.
But that’s nothing compared to Trump’s choice for Secretary of Commerce, financial services company CEO Howard Lutnick, who spent $25 million — a record for Washington — on a 16,250-square-foot house with five bedrooms. Inspired by a château in France, the property has an outdoor putting green and an indoor sports court. No sense taking a chance that rain could shut down the day’s sporting activities.
As the Trump world settles into their mansions and decides who loses their job or services, maybe they could hire some of the fired federal public servants to clean the pool or trim the grass on the putting green.
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